Typical Transfer Week

August 25, 2013  Beautiful day in Helsinki.  Weather about 68 degrees and clear.  A early fall day for sure.

This past week has been transfer week and it has been busy, fun, sad, and challenging for all.  First of all you have to remember that we have been preparing apartments for these new missionaries for the past month and now we are ready for the invasion.  Also in preparation for the event, Lynne had to update and publish 30 copies of an orientation book for the new missionaries and their trainers.  Each book is 149 pages, so it takes a while to proof, prepare, print and assemble.  Along with that there are bunches of others stuff that needs to be given to the new missionaries, such as language training guides, missionary handbooks, planning books, credit cards, Finnish registration paperwork, insurance forms and releases, bicycling information, driving in Finland  information, referral guidance, privacy law guidance, email direction, copies of passports, visas, and driver's licenses, medical information, and other stuff.  Three of us in the office try to do it all in an hour and a half, but it doesn't always work.  The missionaries usually arrive at about 3:10 PM on a Tuesday afternoon in the Helsinki Airport.  Since there are so many of them we have to borrow a van and a trailer for luggage from the temple.  There were 15 new missionaries this week, 12 sisters and 3 elders, so both vans, with trailers, had a big load.  That afternoon they usually go to the temple for a quick tour and write their thoughts upon arrival in country.  After that they go to the president's home for the evening and a nice dinner.  Most of them are zonked out with the flight so they don't remember too much of what is going on.  Wednesday morning they go to the local police station and register in the country for their stay.  After that they come to the mission office for our orientation briefing while the President is training all the new trainers.  Then they eat lunch at the mission office which is prepared by the office staff and about 1:30 PM they go to another training session with the trainers and the mission president.  At the end of that meeting around 3 PM they are finally introduced to their new companions and immediately, and I mean immediately, the APs and the office staff start buying train tickets for all the companionships that are heading out.  As soon as most of the tickets are purchased, the APs start conveying the missionaries to the bus and train stations for their trip to their new assignments. The place is really a madhouse for a while.

Wait!  It is not over yet.  Usually somebody misses their train and they call Lynne or me and try to work something out to catch the next train.  But around 9 PM life settles down a bit and we try to go home.  I forgot to tell you while all this is going on we have missionaries that are leaving the next morning to go home wandering around the office.  We have to make sure they have their departure books which we have tried to prepare a few days ahead but that doesn't always work either.  I have to make CDs for them with all their letters to the President and his letters to them.  Most of the time the CDs have about 500-600 pages of letters between the missionary and the president.  Also we have to get their credit cards and make sure they pay their office debt and give them their boarding passes.  We originally had 5 going home this past Thursday but Tuesday evening the President called and said that two sisters were going home unexpectedly because of illnesses.  So Lynne and I had to get all their departure stuff ready to go by the following day because they were going home with the other missionaries.  Needless to say, it was a busy week all the way around.  Thursday I was back to paying some bills and Lynne was emailing all the parents of the new missionaries and sending them pictures of their kids with the president. 

Friday we managed to catch up on some stuff that had got behind, work on next year's budget and Saturday we went to the temple with the office missionaries and my brother and his wife who are visiting Finland right now. The film stopped near the end of the session so we had a member of the temple presidency read that last part.  It went really well as he has a very nice, deep, base voice.

It is fun to have Gary and Kaisa here.  We have eaten together a couple of times, but that is about the interaction we have had with them.  I do think that we are going to Tallinn with them next month so all is not lost.  

I do have to say that I was very impressed with the missionaries this week who arrived.  They have such a wonderful spirit and just good to be around.  Hope they all do well and have a super experience while in Finland.  

Hope you are all well and life is great.  We are fine.  Give our love to all.

Rick and Lynne

Quick Update

August 11, 2013  Nice summer, Sunday day in Helsinki.  Weather great and so is the temperature.

Well, we are pretty much back in the groove as far as work is concerned.  Since we got back from the north trip we have been very busy with work.  Last week was a Senior Missionary Seminar for all the senior missionaries in Finland. There are seven couples and two single sisters, plus the mission president.  It didn't included the temple missionaries but we did all have dinner together last Monday evening.  Tuesday morning we visited the Fazer chocolate factory and fed our faces with great chocolate. Tuesday afternoon we had about 4 hours of instruction from President Rawlings and then went out to dinner at a nice restaurant on the edge of a lake that evening. Wednesday morning we all went to a session at the temple and had some instruction that afternoon.  It was fun conference in the end, but Lynne and I spent much time organizing the event.  It was good to visit with all the seniors and received instruction from the president.  We need direction just like the young missionaries.

This is a picture of the "tractor eggs" that we saw along the way when we drove north.  This is the way they put up their hay in the summer.  They put it up green in these heavy, sealed plastic bags and a big semi-truck comes around and hauls them away for the dairies.  It is very rainy and it was difficult to dry the hay the regular way on sticks, so they went to the more modern approach.

There are cranes all over this town during the summer and they are scary.  Just look at these and you wonder how they work without falling over.  They operate them from the bucket and just shoot up and they work in them all day long.

This is a picture of the senior missionaries at the lake-side restaurant.  The food was good, the service great, but it was a bit pricey.  All enjoyed the evening.

All work and no play makes for a dull life and that is what we have been doing lately.  But yesterday we changed tactics and took our rugs to the seaside and washed them.  They have a regular place down amidst the boats and tourist for washing rugs and so we went down and did our thing.  We were the only ones washing rugs but the tourist buses driving by thought that we were regular Finns just out washing their dirty rugs.  I am sure that we are in a lot of cameras now.  We also had a cute Finnish lass come by and ask us what the secret of a lasting marriage was, as she is getting married in few days and was looking for some practical hints.  I doubt is she will pay any attention to our advise, but it was fun anyway.

So that is about as exciting as it gets right now.  We are getting ready for another 14 new missionaries in about two weeks from now.  We need to find another apartment still for one pair of them.  We are getting new sisters so fast now that we have to put two of them together with an older trainer because we don't have enough experienced sister trainers to go one on one.  We also have a number of senior sister missionaries that have medical problems right now, so this next transfer could be very interesting.

Lynne and I are doing very well.  A new couple, Thelins, have been very helpful in the office.  They have managed to help us make it through some tough scheduling problems lately.  They certainly came at a very opportune time.  They will be working with the Single Young Adult program in our ward here, and if they have extra time, they will help us in the office.

We hope and pray that all of you are doing well and experiencing great things in your life.  We love what we are doing, even if we work many hours each week.  It is all His work and that is the important thing to remember. We are certainly blessed, and so is our family.  He watches over His missionaries in more ways than I can describe.

Our love to all of you.

Rick and Lynne